Destiny 2 Lore - Tier Ranking Destiny's Final Raid Bosses according to their power in the lore! 

Lore Aside, Rhulk's fight is something I hope Bungie takes and runs with it in future raids and dungeons. That fact that Rhulk talks and has lines during the fight, taunts us during the fight added such a nice touch made it that much more satisfying to finish him off

“We do not know the true body count of the taken king” Damn Oryx really is a freak ain’t he

Fun fact:At the battle of Mare Ebreum, Crota cracked the surface of the moon everytime he swung his sword.

This is the only Destiny tier list that I respect.

I'd say Rhulk is S+ lol. Knowing everything about Rhulk makes his defeat at our hands so satisfying. Especially when he goes from composed wielder of Darkness to a frenzied brawler when he realizes he's about to die. His arrogance (Admittedly, rightfully earned) was his undoing, and I suspect the Witness saw it coming.

What I love about the eliksni bosses is that they are all way out of their league when we consider the power scale, but still put on a good fight by just having absolutely insane ideas and contraptions.

I always saw Taniks as being similar to General Grievous from Star Wars. He’s a cyborg who doesn’t have any special powers but he still manages to go head-to-head with beings that are much more powerful than him and win anyway

Calus is hard to rate. One of his automatons was a raid boss. In the lore from the derelict Glycon, he controls at least 4 automatons at once. By Season of the Haunted, he seems to be remotely inhabiting the Leviathan which contains an army of the things.

I think the easiest way to show how Rhulk is a power level above Oryx is pointing out Rhulk is single handedly responsible for the entire context of reality Oryx is aware of, and it was something Rhulk thought was a boring job to do.

The fact that rhulk was "playing the part" during his fight by not instantly killing or worse doing horrible, otherworldly things to our guardians just because he can just shows that he in fact is extremely powerful. Oyrx implied it himself with kingsfall. If you aren't fighting for your life, you aren't fighting at full potential and it shows with Rhulks last stand. He sees you as worthy. He sees you as something he needs to fight for his life in order to survive. If he fought like that at the beginning we wouldn't even gotten close to him before he would have just ate the guardians light. Rhulk should be feared just from the fact that he would have saw oryx as a mere child to him

I really want the darkness’ “Resonance” to be the last subclass we unlock. It would be so cool to command the same power that caused the collapse of humanity all those centuries ago.

I feel like powers such as the Vault of Glass and Siva almost need to be reclassified as “hyper-causal,” meaning they’re powerful enough to overcome even paracausal magics.

As a fan of The Black Garden I'm very happy about where you put The Sanctified Mind and why you put it there.

I would personally like too see all raid bosses. I’m not a RU-vidr so I don’t know the logistics or anything but it would be cool if they were ranked on this same tier list. Obviously most of them would be lower tiers but it would still be cool too see every raid boss ever on this list. I know that would be a massive undertaking since many bosses have little lore to them and the length of the video would likely be twice the size of this one. But I know myself and some others would appreciate it

I think u forgot to mention that Ahamkara can live after death through their bones so Riven is powerful in that aspect as well.

We need a tier list of all the big bads, not only raids: Panoptes, Xol, Dul, Quria, Savathun, etc

I think at minimum Aetheon is A tier. The fact that he can erase people from existence and jump through time is what makes the Vex so insane. In the lore, the Vex pretty much crush every other race outside of the Hive.

Excellent video idea! I'd love to see a tier list of the strongest Guardians, according to their power in the lore.

Aksis is honestly my favorite raid boss but I absolutely agree with the rating. He's no pushover by any means but it really speaks to how the eliksni really have been crippled by power creep over the years.

I'm in full agreement with Riven. Something that can dance around even the Winnower's ideology is scary. I imagine once the Witness and the Darkness are driven back this Wish Magic stuff will be able to flourish their wings. Maybe we can learn to harness it.

After we finally encounter Xivu (hopefully as a fully realized disciple) we can get a lore power ranking of the three sister at their prime. That'll be a really interesting discussion.

Finally. Some proper destiny content from the community.

I think Ahamkara in general are hard to place on a power scale. Armies of them have been wiped out by a pair of guardians, but as Byf said Riven bamboozled Oryx, and even the Guardian lest we forget. On top of that, Ahamkara can't really die can they? They just sort of...change. I'm not entirely convinced that they couldn't just remake themselves in certain situations.

I'm saying this now, I would love to see you do a tier list for campaign and expansion bosses. I'm talking about the Heart of the Black Garden, Skolas, Ghaul, Uldren Sov, etc.

Maybe a tier list vid on all the Fallen/Eliksni kells? I’d be interested to see how they all rank up, I’d probably say they’d be ranked individually over them and their respective Houses though. Or maybe a tier list on all the Iron Lords and/or Warlods potentially?

For anyone who wants to make the mistake of comparing Oryx to Rhulk remember that Oryx served the Worm gods and will devour him if he ever fails to deliver enough tribute. The Worm gods serve Rhulk. Rhulk served The Witness. It's a completely different scale of power. It's basically middle management compared to a C-suite executive.

I always felt like the Vex were something that were made weaker to actually make it something that can be fought against. I feel like the capabilities that were given to them lore-wise would have made them utterly unstoppable in a technical sense. Like they have the opposite of plot armor, like a plot weakness. Or, even more terrifying, that they simply let guardians THINK that they were beatable to give false confidence. Maybe they choose to let the Light live to give opposition to the other forces of darkness, which they despise.

Honestly kind of want to see that video ranking power for all the non-final encounter bosses. Yeah, it's fun to talk about the big boys, but I think there's an equally interesting debate about the weaker bosses specifically because they aren't so far above everything else, and in a hypothetical battle royale, there's a lot more ways things could play out. Deathsinger has a lot of power, but is too much of a glass cannon to get anywhere, especially when you have other hive involved who will know to target them before the song finishes. The Psionic War Beasts from the Leviathan Pleasure Gardens could be a real sleeper pick, considering how little we know about psionic powers. They could potentially hard counter paracausal bosses like the Techeuns or Daughters of Oryx by overwhelming their minds, preventing them from using their abilities. Maybe. Again, very unclear how psionic powers actually work. Warpriest is pretty tough, but dies when he gets distracted dealing with the Gatekeepers from VoG, and doesn't notice the the flaming servitor from the sparrow section of Scourge of the Past barreling towards him at top speed. Golgoroth and Morgeth are basically the same dude. Golgoroth tries to kill Morgeth, but he looks into his face and they share a moment of understanding. Golgoroth cannot bear to kill the only other one who knows what it's like being the mediocre mid-boss of the raid. The Caretaker from Vow looks on from the distance. He knows this pain all too well, and wants to go hang out with them, but two of Atraks-1's replications keep stunning him when he tries to do anything. In a particularly shocking upset, the past, present, and future Gatekeepers from VoG all die to the WotM Siege Engine. Gahlran's Illusions attempt to kill the harpy from GoS, but keep getting into arguments about messing up the tethers. All three, and the harpy, are also eventually killed by the Siege Engine, which at this point has been commandeered by non-abomination Taniks, who was only allowed in on a technicality of having a different title during DSC Descent, and thus not being the same boss as he is in the final encounter. Vosik is eliminated after he accidentally gets himself locked in the Last Wish Vault. Atraks-1 survives to at least the final few by hanging out in the leviathan Gauntlet while her replications do all the work.

Something I can't help but wonder about are the implications that the Witness favor Nezarec more than Rhulk despite the Latter's powers and feat. The witness had been known to be willing to save a life in exchange for more lives to be ended. Rhulk is proof of that. Now take into consideration everything that happened in the Season of the Haunted. Despite Calus being at the core of it, the main problem at that time are the Nightmares formed through the "defense mechanism" of the Lunar Pyramid. We haven't even seen the extent of what can Nezarec and its Pyramid can do. Nezarec is even referred to as an "End" and seem to possess the same transcendence to death that Ahamkaras posses. With Delicate Tomb implying Nezarec's consciousness is within the relics similar to how Ahamkaras are with their bones. All this lore about Nezarec possibly returning and the Witness trying to make Calus fuse with the Lunar Pyramid, Nezarec's Pyramid. Makes me wonder if the Witness' plan is to use Calus as some sort of vessel for Nezarec's return. The witness is known to use deception (like what it did to the Hive) maybe, it didn't tell Calus the full truth. Calus will indeed be the last, but not as "Calus" he will be "Nezarec".

I'd love to see a tier list ranking the power of different guardians we've seen and heard of from the lore. People like Saint-14 and Osiris were once only names back in Destiny 1, but are now characters we've seen and had extensive lore on in Destiny 2. I'd love to see a comparison with them, Eris, the vanguard, Shaxx, and maybe people like Eris' fireteam who were defeated by Crota or Praedith. Loved the video, can't wait to see more!

This is seriously the only ad I didn't skip. Props to you for taking on an honorable cause for your promotion.

Enjoy your break big man, you deserve it!

Great video! Would absolutely love more tier lists or power scaling in the Destiny universe. Maybe one for dungeon or even strike bosses?😂

Honestly, and I know this is a HUGE ask, I'd love to see a ranking of the in-game stories. Very interested in hearing your thoughts and reasoning of everything from D1 Vanilla to Season of Plunder.

A raid encounter-boss or strike boss tier list would be fun. Love the content, keep up the good work!

Great list! Would love to see this applied to other things like named Guardians or story bosses

You should do a ranking of all major bosses throughout campaigns, dungeons, and raids. It would be really interesting. Probably just add to this list or something

love this. You should do more tier list with lore in mind of course. Because it really shows the feats of Guardian's and how strong Guardian's truly are to people. How they defeated these enemies of humanity/ Sol system and more. People seriously downplay these guys. All in All Great video as always Byf.

I normally just listen to byf’s videos while I work, but this time for some reason i got my phone out and saw the “top tier use of super” part 😂😂 LOVE IT!!!

Awesome video, I would love more tier lists like one with all the other raid bosses or the dungeon bosses!

Additionally, we have to consider the fact that in most of the raids, we are fighting the bosses on their own turf, or that there are extenuating circumstances that are making the boss more of a threat than of we were fighting them on more even ground (what made Insurrection Prime such a threat was that it was smack dab in the middle of the Last City).

Epic as usual. Best ride home from work I’ve had all year 🎉

This tier list is awesome given the context of the lore and I agree with every decision you made.

I’d love to see other bosses ranked based on this criteria. Strike bosses, dungeon bosses, or even lesser raid bosses. You could even do a list of deceased guardians; that might be interesting.

I agree with Riven in S tier. In Truth to Power, there is a description of the ahamkara’s power, relating it to the darkness and the anthem anathema, converting desire to reality. In the hidden dossier it even confirms this is a good description. The ahamkara literally evolved to take advantage of the latent dark paracausal principles of the universe. Crazy.

I loved this so much. I would love to see all the other bosses as well.

This was a really fun video, i think it would be interesting to do this not only for other raid bosses, but maybe also strike bosses as well

I would love to see a tier list of famous guardians in lore along with the vanguard and other known guardians.

would be nice to see a tier list of the power of individual guardians by lore, but it's understandably difficult to do, given that there are not many descriptions or displays of their prowess, only their fame

We love having you bro, you been helping me with sleep problems ❤

Legitimately the only in-video ad I have ever listened to

At points like this it's a reminder that having just one pyramid ship to call his own was a major feat by itself and to face the witness with potentially hundreds or thousands of them or perhaps even more is insane

Regarding Atheon, lore and the description of the void and stasis in the game’s tabs suggest that Stasis and the Void can be used to manipulate time and space. Elizabeth, at one point in the dark future, used a dusk field grenade to suspend her bed and other items in frozen time when Ana sought her out to defeat Eris and Savathun. It also makes sense that Ikora is Warlock Vanguard, as a master of the Void, she can shift through dimensions, affect gravity, and distort space and time. Causing destruction across the battlefield, or subvert the laws of physics and time.

I would ADORE a video about the in-between raid bosses, cause some of them are fricken awesome! (and perhaps maybe a raid boss soundtrack tierlist?)

Agreed you did great ranking this

Bungie should definitely add the Cerberus Vae III strike back into the game, all because of the fact that whether we wanted it or not, we've stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars. So let's get to taking out their command, one by one. Valus Ta'aurc. From what I can gather he commands the Siege Dancers from an Imperial Land Tank outside of Rubicon. He's well protected, but with the right team, we can punch through those defenses, take this beast out, and break their grip on Freehold

I definitely agree about Riven. Given that every being has desires and her powers are likely fueled by desires, she could have been used as an immensely destructive weapon had we not put her down.

I would love to see more of these tier list videos!

May I please have a tier list for the power of the encounters leading up to raid bosses? I know it’s a huge endeavor for you and your team, but… I think it warrants diving into. The lore behind the encounters that guide our way is just as important, if not more so, than the lore behind the actual raid bosses. Love the content, keep it up! Byf and Team, respect.

Especially since you decided to randomly throw in Skolas I definitely think this vid should have been a Campaign Big Bad's + Raid Bosses ranking. Sometimes they overlap anyways(Oryx was the main enemy in the main campaign for Taken King) and Ghaul, Eramis , Savathun and Fikrul all pose/posed as big or bigger threats than a lot on this list.

I always interpreted the fight with Val Ca'uor to be less fighting a random low ranked Val and more like the last collective strength of the Red Legion itself. The Val was outfitted with the best gear and supported by the remaining most powerful ships of the Legion's fleet, although that clearly still wasnt enough

Idk if anyone mentioned it but on destinypedia in the Trivia tab for insurrection prime it say that during the Livestream Raid Along the devs said Insurrection prime's wipe mechanic is big enough to destroy the entire last city. Now idk about you but that seems like a pretty important point to take into account

Great video! I think you should have included all the bosses from all of the campaigns as well though, just a thought!

Btw Byf, Established titles has been confirmed to be a scam. They dont actually plant trees, and there is no such thing as owning 1-foot land in Scotland.

I'm disappointed that Savathun doesn't have a raid of her own. Maybe later, in S19 her ghost Immaru will revive her & she will be a raid boss as well as taking Immaru out for good. Would be a nice conclusion to our year long battle with the Lucent Hive, & moving onto some Shadow Cabal next 🥳

Props to Val Ca’uor, he was weak and low ranked but he put up one hell of a fight. Man was fighting for his race.

I'd love to see tier lists of the characters or locations regarding their realised potential. Whether you want to focus on most squandered potential or most realised would be interesting to hear.

I have a feeling that if Oryx ever did find out about the existence of Rhulk, he probably would be fucking livid. Because he truly believed that he was the closest connection to the darkness and yet Rhulk is the first disciple of the Witness and literally made the Hive for shits and giggles to see if they could actually be of use for the goals of reaching the Final Shape. Knowing him he would probably rant a bit in a book of sorrow verse if he had learned of his existence, and then probably go after weaker disciples of the Witness and then finally face Rhulk to try to prove that only he should deserve to be that close to darkness. The only question though is whether the Witness or Rhulk would directly intervene if they see that their disciples are dying one by one from their experiment that is the hive?

Wait if I remember correctly isn't there a triumph for beating dsc and it gives you some sort of helmet which you can place in the house next to the exo stranger? I've always assumed that the helmet came from taniks

Yes, we would like to see this kind of tier list for every raid encounter boss.

Can't wait to see where Nezerac ranks on here

Calus actually does have psychic power of his own that he obtained by drinking Nessus wine, and it is far beyond that of a piston

Though it is true Rhulk posseses the most raw strength of all raid bosses, raw strength is not always enough to win as proven by his defeat at our hands. He underestimated his opponents leaving himself wideopen for unexpected attacks. If he was to go against Riven, she could easily turn all his paracausal strength against him after he wished to defeat her. With self-righteous state of mind that Rhulk he's left vulnerable to cleverness of his enemies

This is perhaps one of your best works in regards to Destiny 2

Yes this is the kind of content we need right now

Bro is using anything but good weapons for any kind of dps phase 💀 a bow for riven, sweet business for calus outbreak for ghalran

I always wondered if like the sol divisive, a vex subtype would be like "damn the guardian kills everything....maybe we should try to not fight them?"

Easy answer for me. I would love a tier list of the story/lore of every destiny release, seasons included. Since it’s contents haven’t been touched in a long time, I’d love to see how the story and lore of a season like SOT Drifter line up to other seasons. Obviously that season had a lackluster gameplay loop, but it was the first comprehensive info we got into what the Nine are and the Ecdysis lore book about Orin trumps every other Destiny 2 lore book for me. Compared to season everyone (myself included) love, I think this season’s lore could surprise, and I’d love to see how you think every Destiny release’s stories weight up against each other

Different lore content like this is awesome

Warframe lore vids when? Nothing about Angels of the Zariman? Veilbreaker? Duviri?

Honestly. I think psionic power is stronger than you give it props for. We used it in season of the risen in order to capture hive guardians.

Great list can't argue with that

Hoping for a dungeon and lesser raid boss tier list after this! ❤

I know this is strictly raid bosses, but IMO Savathun > Rhulk. Both in real life and in fiction, we’ve seen countless examples of students/subordinates overtaking masters. The fact that Rhulk created the Hive and carried out the Witness’ plan doesn’t necessarily mean that he is forever and always more powerful. She may not have raw power in the same sense as Rhulk, but she outsmarted him and trapped him in his pyramid. I’m not even sure she’s dead with Immaru still out there. That gives her an added edge over Oryx, which is that even when killed in their Throne World, she may not be dead for good. Rhulk has no ghost, and barring some future power bestowed upon him by the Witness, he’s dead for good. The same cannot be said for Savathun.

Even though Val Ca'uor is F tier, his design to me is S tier. I love the very bulky and heavy armor he is wearing that is both reminiscent of W40k Space Marines and also being very roman-isque, the cabal magma launcher he has and the huge magmapack. since the first time I did Spire of Stars I have always wished for a titan armor set that is based on him. also even lore wise, whilst he is nothing but a Val, I always loved the fact that he took command of the remnants of the red legion fleet and mounted a raid on the Leviathan before even being promoted to a Valus.

Just a heads up the title stuff is a scam, look it up, they haven't even bought one tree

Hey Byf, first off have fun on your time off, you deserve it! I was thinking of trying to offer lore raid sherpas for DSC next season and would love some easy reference material, I looked for a raid along, but couldn't find one for DSC. I think I remember you did one for a charity stream, if so and you still have the video footage I'd very much appreciate if you could upload that. Thank you so much!

I would love to see a teir list of secondary bosses. If not just to learn a little more about them from you.

for those who dont know yet, establish titels is a scam. they changed their narrative from "call yourself legally lord" to "it's a fun joke present" after it got out.

Hey Byf, just figured I'd let you know that established titles has been confirmed a scam and their plaque is just a gag, you end up not owning a plot of land, and you are not actually a lord/lady. There was a pretty big video that dropped showing the legality of it all.

Tanniks' sheer will is paracausal! He defies death every chance he gets 🤣🤣

I'd love to see another tier list ranking the other raid bosses, like the Warpriest, the Consecrated Mind, the Caretaker, etc. Obviously nowhere near as powerful as the raid bosses in this video, but I love learning about the lore in a simple tierlist like these, and I think you'll gain a lot of followers by doing these.

Love the video but I'm pretty sure the sponser, Established Titles is a scam. You don't actually get a real title and there's no evidence they actually plant trees.

I hope bungie will eventually actually start treating the vex as a massive threat again as for a while it’s always them being cucked by almost every faction . It almost feels like every since destiny 2 they made them way too weak while making the other factions power bullshit ridiculous like the fact that the broken red legion with three stupid ass Psions can just casually hijack there systems and they can’t do fuck all about it.

would love this for the dungeons or smaller raid bosses like the caretaker. really fun topic

This was a great video

Important thing to keep in mind regarding the lore of House Light: they, like us, seem to have less reverence and dependence on the Traveler. Do they still respect it, as “the Great Machine”? Yes. But they’re faithful saying is: “the Light provides”. Just as the Guardians status que has changed, Mithraks created a new House that follows a new set of rules, built on a foundation of pacifism, compassion, and a religious relationship to the Light itself, not directly the Travaler. As for us Guardians, the definition of our mission has changed: protecting humanity, but now we are Guardians of Sol itself, and our allies of the Coalition. Our faith in the Traveler has waned to disappearing, as even Zavala seems to have accepted the grey outlook we and those of the Dark Vanguard have adopted. We are no longer defenders of the Traveler, but of the Light, like House Light, humanity, Sol, and our allies. Just an interesting parallel. Symbolically, the Light represents, rebirth, hope, but blindness to reality’s and morality’s objective truths. While the Darkness represents memory, holding onto emotions, survival of the fittest and your will being connected through that consciences of those that share you’re ideals of the Final Shape. Finding balance between, as some Guardians have may symbolize the true grey outlook of real clarity. Instead of the bias of either ideology, perhaps symmetry of both can help us for clarity. Characters like Mara, and the Dark Vanguard came to this revelation long before us it seems.

I feel like ultimate victory for the guardians is kind of a foregone conclusion. If Rhulk is that immensely strong and the guardians can just waltz into his pyramid and literally kill him at first sight, what honestly can stop them? To be fair though, the guardians have had to take power from other beings in the form of weaponry, but I think the point still stands. Guardians are the apex predators of the universe until something can prove otherwise.

Man, the first chords of *Chronologies* still give me chills.

I used to watch Byf talk about the sea monsters on Titan, can’t believe he’s still uploading even before and after Lightfall dropped.